As a founding partner and chair of the Executive Committee, Ms. Mona Zulficar oversees the operations of the Firm’s six departments; specialized in assisting our clients in various practice areas. A practicing attorney for more than 30 years, she is a specialist in major financial, industrial, and commercial transactions and has negotiated, drafted, and concluded all the major contracts required by some of the most important joint venture businesses in Egypt. Involved in major restructuring of companies, M&A transactions, and is particularly recognized for handling ground breaking and precedent transactions, such as the largest transaction in the history of the Middle East relating to the sale of Orascom Building Materials Holding SAE to Lafarge, for approximately USD13 billion in addition to USD2 billion of assumed debt, and most recently, she lead the team responsible for the first successful PPP Project in Egypt.

She has played and continues to play a key role in drafting new legislation and developing existing economic legislation as adviser to the various governmental entities and as member of the national drafting committees on many important laws, such as the new Telecom Law, the new Capital Market Regulations, the new Special Economic Zones Law and the new Banking Law regulations. She has also been appointed as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Egypt and is directly involved in the ambitious Egyptian institutional and regulatory reform program of the banking and finance sector. Complementing her professional activities with a commitment to community activism, she has been an active advocate for human rights and women’s rights in Egypt and internationally. She has recently been elected member and Vice Chair of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee and she is also a member of the National Council for Human Rights in Egypt. In 2009, she received la legion d’honneur from the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy for her significant professional role in concluding landmark commercial and financial transactions between Egypt and France and for her achievements in the field of human rights.

Ms. Zulficar obtained her political science and law degrees from Cairo University and Mansoura University and an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Zurich. Her working languages are Arabic, English and French.